Dojo: The Definitive Guide

Accessibility (a11y)

Accessibility is an increasingly important topic in the information age. In addition to a common goal of delivering content to the widest audience possible (with or without disability), political power such as Section 508^[20] and other established legislation that sets a minimal standard for technology being accessible to persons with disabilities, and there are economic incentives as well: the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the discretionary spending of people with disabilities is in the neighborhood of 175 billion dollars (http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/busstat.htm). No matter how you look at it and what your motives might be, a11y is an issue that's hard to ignore.

Common a11y Issues

While this short section cannot even begin to address the myriad details associated with successfully implementing a web application, it should raise your awareness of the issues involved and highlight the ways that Dijit addresses them. Two of the most common accessibility tasks involve supporting users with impaired vision who need screen readers and users who require the ability to completely navigate an application using only the keyboard.

By default, Dijit inherently supports both audiences. Accessibility for users with impaired vision is addressed by detecting if the browser is operating in high-contrast mode and by detecting whether images are disabled for Internet Explorer or Firefox.^[21] If either accessibility-enabling condition is detected, dijits are rendered ...